Germany: More funds for SMEs: EIB and Investitionsbank Sachsen sign €50 million loan agreement

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is pressing ahead with its commitment to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the East German Federal States too. Together with Investitionsbank Sachsen-Anhalt (IB) the EU bank is supporting SME projects with a €50 million loan. EIB President Werner Hoyer und IB’s CEO Manfred Maas signed the loan agreement in Magdeburg today in the presence of Sachsen-Anhalt’s Finance Minister Jens Bullerjahn.

President Hoyer called small and medium-sized firms the engine of economic growth. They create jobs and very often give young people a start in their career. Small businesses are also frequently highly innovative. “As the EU bank, the EIB regards supporting SMEs as one of its primary financing tasks. Shoulder to shoulder with local partners like Investitionsbank Sachsen-Anhalt, we therefore make available appropriate resources that can be rapidly deployed to meet such firms’ financing needs. In this way we want to help boost growth and competitiveness in Europe over the medium and long terms” said Werner Hoyer at the signing ceremony.  

IB’s CEO Manfred Maas stressed that “These resources will used to refinance further promotional loans. A first tranche of €25 million will be channelled into SME lending before the end of the year. Firms thereby benefit from good terms for their investments – be it in the prefinancing of orders or the development and marketing of innovations.” Promotional lending programmes like Sachsen-Anhalt MUT or Sachsen-Anhalt IMPULS have proved their worth as a complement to the offering of house banks. Local experience with revolving funds could provide a paradigm at national level and a strategically important financing model in the new 2014-2020 EU promotional period. Through their interest rates and returns, such loans make further long-term promotional activity possible.

Support for small and medium-sized companies has long been one of the EU bank’s top financing priorities. In the first half of this year alone, the EIB made available EUR 11.7 billion for some 68 000 SMEs and midcaps (firms with up to 3 000 employees). In 2013, total financing by the EIB Group (EIB and European Investment Fund) in support of such firms reached the record amount of around EUR 22 billion, making this the biggest single sector financed. Strengthening the small business economy will continue to be one of the Bank’s key tasks going forward.